Screaming Eagles
by JDCrawford48
Summary: Alex Powell and his team of highly specialized Orbital Drop Shock Troopers must fight the Covenant Alliance who are determined to exterminate all of humanity. Powell and his team, nicknamed "The Eagles" will fight tooth and nail for every rock they fight on. Rated T. Please provide constructive criticism as this is my first fanfic.
1. Harvest

**Corporal Alex Powell**

**On board the UNSC Belfast In orbit around Harvest**

**7th October 2530: UNSC Calender**

"Get Ready!" Came the booming voice of our sergeant.

To be honest I was excited, this would be my first combat drop, and my first time fighting the homicidal covenant alliance, I couldn't wait for my opportunity to avenge those who had died on Harvest. I loaded my gear into the secure slots. My suppressed M7 with 240 rounds of M443 caseless full metal jacket rounds was sure to rip these alien freaks apart. A few frags to erase them from existence and... well, I could go on all day.

I moved forward and repositioned myself inside my SOEIV

"Powell, wipe that grin off your face, we ain't going for a trip to the beach!"

Oh, I guess I had been grinning...

"Understood sergeant." Was my only response.

"Good, cause we're going on a trip to somewhere far better, anyone care to guess?"

Nobody dared make any witty or sarcastic remarks, not when the sarge was in full combat mode.

"You're all useless, we're going for a ride through hell..." He paused to produce the full clichéd dramatic effect. "...and how do we get there?!" This time he expected a response, it had to be perfectly in time with everyone else.

"Feet first sergeant!" Was the overwhelming response from all nine people. Cool, concise and accurate could best describe our motto.

"Let's do this Helljumpers!"

Then the countdown for our drop began, and I began reviewing the mission in my head. We were to drop two clicks east of a known covenant resupply and refuelling point, my fireteam, under the command of Sergeant Morrison, was to move towards that position and destroy it using our explosives expert Connor Anders and his healthy supply of C10, while Alpha squad under the command of the Sarge would be supporting friendly troops in the town of Gurna. Once that was completed we would be given new orders from command.

3...2...1... Green light! Then I felt the entire world lurch and my stomach heave as the sudden thrust threatened to let me try dinner for a second time. Quickly the feeling subsided, and I was greeted with the glorious sight of space, the beautiful black speckled with stars was truly magnificent.

Should be easy enough then.

It wasn't. 

_**A/N: **_**Not a very long chapter, but they will get longer, constructive criticism is much appreciated as this is my first Fanfic.**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Halo universe, I only own my created characters and the cover photograph. **

**Stay Sharp, JD**


	2. Feet First

**Corporal Alex Powell**

**En-route to Harvest**

**7th October 2530: UNSC Calender**

"Anti-Air!" The world began exploding all around with green plasma bolts flashing past my drop pod door, some detonating before me in a terrifying huge sea of death. "Evasive manoeuvres! Pop chutes!" Our sergeant ordered.

I followed to comply, then felt the world shift and my knees struggle to handle the excessive G forces. Morrison's pod in front of me was glanced by a bolt, before violently spinning.

"My pod's been hit! I can't control it, repeat, I can't con-" His panic was cut short suddenly as his pod smashed at a huge speed into another. Right before my eyes both men were destroyed, crushed and left as hurtling metal and mush.

We were nearing the ground, the AA never letting up, taking several other pods out of the sky around me, amazingly, mine was left entirely untouched. I chanced a glance toward the ground and my heart fell. The covenant had pinpointed our LZ, they had troops moving en-masse towards it.

In my horror, words left my mouth over our comm system. "Sarge, covvies are all over our LZ! What the hell are we going to do?!"

No response.

"Sarge!?"

Eventually an answer reached me, but it was far from the response I had hoped for. "Corporal, I think...I think you're in command now!" Came the shout from private Collins.

Oh crap, oh shit, oh goddamnit!

"Right, ok, well fuck. All troops, LZ is swarming with covvie, we will regroup, take cover and kill them all." To say I was in complete hysteria is an understatement, I didn't know how to lead an entire team!

Impact to the ground, detonation of hatch, collect my weapons.

Go!

"Move! Move! Move!" I screamed. Needles and spikes flew around me, coming from every direction, I glanced around, firing as I moved, we had grunts on the left and right, barely paying any attention to cover as they stood exposed on this admittedly barren ground. Each team had a brute and they were making our lives hell with the firepower they were raining down on us.

There were so many of them! To make things worse I could hear the characteristic "Thunk!" of covenant carbines from behind.

I could see a few rocks and hollows in the ground ahead of me for cover, and I half-sprinted towards them, firing my M7 wildly around me, while I heard multiple pods crash into the ground and the occupants join into the slaughter.

I slid into a hollow in the ground, before reloading my SMG and pumping rounds into the squad of grunts on my right.

Something hit my back, turning revealed it to be another ODST sharing my little half-hole. He was engaging grunts and elites with his MA5B Assault rifle. Resuming my fire to the right, I completely mulched a few grunts before clicking dry of ammo.

"Units report in!" I ordered as I began to reload.

"Collins here!" One.

"Anders up." Two.

"Hayley alive," She said before barely whispering "for now." Three.

"Brian still kicking." Four.

"This is John I'm he- Ah!" That didn't sound good. Five?

"..."

"..."

"..."

Five? That's it!? Out of eleven ODSTs only six (including me) made it to the ground!?

I was taken out of my silent hysteria when a spike slammed into the ground right by my head, making me wake up and resume firing into the squads of grunts and brutes around us.

Getting my head back in the game allowed me to realise that my panicked and nervous self had seriously over-estimated the size of the enemy force, oh, don't get me wrong, we still had at least twenty hostiles suppressing us, but at least it wasn't the hundreds I had so wrongly predicted to begin with.

Our joint fire eventually started taking a toll on the enemy, as the grunts began screaming and running at the sight of their comrades being chewed up and dying. I sighted up the brute trying to rally his grunts before giving it a taste of 10 rounds, damaging his armour and forcing him into cover behind a rock. He completely forgot his task of restoring order, and I seized an opportunity.

My grenade slid perfectly off my belt, the pin was pulled quickly and the frag hefted through the air to land by the rock. A few seconds later the grenade detonated, shooting alien blood everywhere as the brute became shredded.

Success died quickly as I heard an agonized cry come from behind me. Turning around wasn't a pretty sight, the ODST had two spikes impaled in him, one to the arm, the other to his lower stomach. He wouldn't be alive much longer if I didn't do something. His blood was bubbling out around the two spikes and turning his armour a very awful shade of red.

The spike in his stomach had to be removed. So that's exactly what I did before applying copious amounts of bio-foam. Poor lad was probably _loving_ the feeling as the bio-foam did its job.

Thankfully the fighting around us had substantially decreased, and now we were probably just mopping up the survivors. I felt compelled to remove the lads' helmet. Doing so revealed a brown buzz-cut mat of hair, with closed eyes and mouth clenched tightly while showing his teeth. I was surprised he could handle the pain so well.

"Alright, all units regroup on me." I said into our comms, finally relaxing a bit.

We had forced the covenant forces to retreat, leaving behind grunt and brute bodies everywhere, it was oddly satisfying knowing we had done so much damage in such a short space of time. Then I thought of how many soldiers we had lost and that satisfaction was replaced with anger.

By now everyone had joined myself and the ODST, who I learned was private Collins. I say _was_ because he had since died of blood loss and internal bleeding, taking his tags I realised that my bio-foam application not being correct had likely caused his death. Damn me for making such a stupid mistake. No doubt his face, no longer contorted in pain but with blood trickling down his chin, would be etched in my damned memory forever.

There was only four of us now, there was no way we could complete our mission successfully. Thus I radioed command. **"Command this is 1st platoon come in."**

**"1st platoon this is command, send message, over." **A deep voiced operator responded.

**"Command, 1st platoon is four effective, say again, we are four effective, please advise, over." **Please dear goodness let him understand our situation is absolutely FUBAR.

**"Understood 1st platoon, resume your mission of sabotaging the covenant supply depot, all friendly forces in Gurna have been declared KIA, over." **You have GOT to be kidding me! Not only were command making us destroy the depot with only four troops, they were leaving our asses in the wind with no way out!

**"Command, we are combat ineffective, we have excessive casualties and limited ammo, how do you suggest we destroy that depot and evac?!" ** I had shouted my response in pure, seething anger.

**"Unknown, war is hell. Good luck trooper. Out."**

Well fuck you too command, you didn't follow radio protocol.

Feet first into hell? They sure got that part right...

**A/N: My first combat scene, hope you enjoyed it. Chapters are still a bit too short for my liking. Constructive criticism is much appreciated.**

******Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Halo universe, I only own my created characters and the cover photograph.**

**Stay sharp, JD**


	3. Forlorn Hope

**Corporal Alex Powell**

**Two Clicks east of current objective in sector Golf-7**

**7th October 2530**

After taking stock of the situation, my hopes did not rise at all.

We were low on ammo with barely enough for two mags each, we were four troopers effective, while we were ordered to go ahead with the objective to destroy the covenant resupply point and we had no guarantee for any sort of evac.

All in all, we were pretty fucked.

"All right, here's the situation, Hayley and I will be on point while we move to the west, when we get there, we will spend as little time as possible, I want it to be a hit and run." I said.

"What about extraction?" Questioned Anders.

"Didn't you here command? They don't care about us. They know we're probably all gonna die anyway!" Hayley snapped back.

"Knock it off Hayley. We'll get it sorted." She was infuriating me. We had to try to stay positive, even if we were pretty screwed. How hypocritical of me.

"Oh knock it off? You know as well as I do that we are not going to survive." she said before continuing, "If we start heading towards friendly lines now, we still have a chance." Her blacked out visor remained staring at me, and I swear I could see her blue eyes pleading with me to let us try and get home safely together.

I was hoping no-one would recommend (or in Hayleys case, beg for) this option, now the idea was in their heads, ordering them to follow through would make them think I didn't care if we all died either. She was right of course, she was always right, if we started now, we could make it back to friendlies and live to fight another day. However this supply depot was letting the covenant remain active in this area, making the human lines fall back farther by the hour.

Ugh! I hated being a team leader already. The lives of the team, or the lives of potentially a whole battalion?

"Orders are orders." I coolly answered before setting off at a walk towards the west. At least we could all die together and I could have no regrets. Maybe the world was that merciful at least.

"We may not even destroy the depot corporal!" Hayley shouted, now pissed off with me, the use of my rank a solid indicator of that.

"We may not even reach our own lines in time! _Private._" I answered, "We don't have a choice, if we do not destroy the depot, we won't have anywhere to fall back to! The covenant have already taken Gurna. Look, I don't want us all to die, but we won't if we suck it up and get to work, we're called helljumpers for a fucking reason."

I turned around to look at the three troopers behind me. Anders and Brian, who had been surprisingly quiet during the exchange, had already began following me. Both of their visors shifted to me, their faces and emotions completely masked, before they both gave me a silent nod.

Farther behind stood Hayley, still staring forlornly at Private Collins' dead body. She looked towards me, before nodding.

With the decision made and our fates sealed, we moved out.

It was time to make the covenant pay.

* * *

The march was silent, even as we moved through what could barely pass as a forest. Tree trunks lay bare on the ground, with the remaining trees standing dead and without any foliage. I knew we were approaching the depot, so I held up my hand and clenched it, before ordering over the comm system

"Hold here, I'll scout up ahead, find some cover from air vehicles."

Before receiving a return message, I set off at a jog while partially crouched, trying to keep my silhouette low.

The edge of the "forest" revealed the target, it had several plasma turrets around the perimeter, I counted at least eight, maybe more. There were no walls surrounding the depot, the far side held a long purple structure. Grunts entered and left the building periodically, it was likely the barracks then. Two other buildings were closer to me, towards the left of the depot, one had a large roof even for brutes, with what looked like an antennae protruding from the top.

Which meant the closest building was the storage area, it certainly looked like a human warehouse of some sort, so the covvies probably just re-purposed it. Thank goodness for small mercies.

Even still, numerous patrols circled the area, usually there was at least one on every side. As of yet, no enemy banshees, spirits or phantoms had appeared.

Numerous plans flashed through my mind; We could have two covering while the others crossed, no, there was too much open ground for that. We could attempt to draw one of the patrols away from their route, no, that would just raise their alertness level...

Think!

A diversionary attack! We would need two units to fire on the base from the far side of the base, while the brutes responded to contact, that team would break and make for friendly lines, while the other team infiltrated the base and planted the charges.

The forest went the majority of the way around the base, so that allowed some sort of cover for us to move around.

Anders had the charges, so he must be part of the infiltration team. Brian had a MA5 Assault rifle and Hayley had a BR55. Those two would be my diversion then, while I would be with Anders.

"Move to my position." I said over comms.

When everyone assembled, I went over the plan, it was nowhere near perfect, and I wasn't sure it would even work as hoped, but with four people it was probably the best we could do. Before Hayley and Brian moved out, I caught her attention, "Hey, sorry about earlier, good luck." I depolarized my visor and tried a reassuring smile, but it probably turned into a grimace. She nodded back and moved on.

Fifteen minutes passed when suddenly they opened up on the brutes, they were to fire for 30 seconds flat and then get the hell out south towards our line. I heard the cry of grunts and brutes alike as they were surprised by the sudden ferocious fire and sounded the alarm.

The covenant poured out of the building I had correctly assumed to be the barracks. All patrols around the base moved away from their path and towards the two ODSTs. This gave myself and Anders the opportunity we needed, I eliminated three grunts manning the plasma turrets with surprising accuracy from my suppressed weapon and we sprinted across the open ground at full speed.

We ran for what felt like minutes, praying that the covenant wouldn't return to their posts as the fire from Hayley and Brian had ceased now. We had almost reached the warehouse when the spirit arrived. "Spirit! Spirit right!" Screamed Anders, of course, it was a supply base, why hadn't I thought of the threat of enemies returning to resupply?

"Ignore it, get to the warehouse and get those charges set inside!" I grunted, we didn't have time to worry about it, grunts on the far side of the base were starting to take notice of us and inform their commanders. Our time limit was shortening rapidly.

Anders smashed his way through the human side door of the warehouse. while I took up position behind a nearby covenant barricade to draw fire. As soon as I was set, the enemy opened up on me, sending spikes and needles all over the barrier, by now the spirit began dropping troops, adding to the already overwhelming firepower of the covenant.

I tried several times to lean around my cover and shoot, but each time was thwarted by accurate fire, effectively shutting down any contribution I could make . "Anders, hurry the fuck up, we are running out of time!" I screamed.

"Sir, charges are set, there is enough ordinance in here to level the entire base. I'm on my way out now!" He responded.

A few seconds later he slammed into my side, panting and groaning. He had a spike in his leg, he wasn't going anywhere fast. "The covenant are pushing up, you have to get out of here!" Wait. What?

"What about you?"

"You have thirty seconds to get the fuck away from this base, I'm not going anywhere." He looked down at his leg and sighed. "Just get out of here."

I didn't want to leave him, but he was right, so I ran, I ran for my life as fast as possible away from the base, the fire landed all around me, hitting by my feet, just before me, and at least one needle made a clean-cut through my arm, shouting pain up my body. This made me stumble a bit before regaining balance and continuing.

Twenty-seven seconds exactly later, the charges exploded and the force took me off my feet, about a metre into the air. I felt the hot plasma burn into my back and neck, then I slammed into the ground on my back. More pain shock me, almost forcing me to unconsciousness.

Taking grasp of the situation, my head spinning, I realised I had been spun and was now facing the destruction, the entire base had been levelled with all covenant forces killed and a good proportion of their ordnance taken from the fight. Even the spirit lay smoking and charred, but that meant Anders' was dead too.

I struggled to my feet, with my legs still unstable and the pain becoming damn near unbearable. The move south would take a while, and I still had to try to make it past covenant lines into our own. "Hayley, Brian, Sitrep." I called over comms while moving.

Hayley responded, "Hayley here, Brian is KIA and I have covenant chasing my ass, I heard the explosion, good job you two." Brian was dead too, great.

"Anders didn't make it, I'll regroup with you and help take out those covvies. Where are you?"

"Really? Damn, I'm moving south right now, there's no real point in trying to help me, but I'm now one kilometre to your south-west."

"Roger that, on my way." I re-orientated in her direction and moved as fast as my body would let me, which wasn't very quick at all. It was unlikely I would catch up to her now that I thought about it.

After running through the dead trees and jumping over a few rotten trunks, I came across Hayley. She was lying up against a tree stump, with her BR laying uselessly beside her and a few dead grunts scattered nearby. She had been shot by a needler straight through her stomach, it had obviously exploded and sent pink shards throughout her body, leaving a messy pulp of intestines and blood.

Her head rolled towards me. "Hey..." she barely whispered.

"Hey." I replied before moving forward and removing her helmet. There were those blue eyes, staring up at me, and her short brown hair fell around her face.

"Take your helmet off, please."

I did just that. My pain had long since been pushed to the back of my mind after seeing her like this. "You must be in a lot of pain." I said looking at her eyes and then her mulched stomach.

"No, I can't feel a thing." There was a spike lodged in her back, it had probably destroyed the spinal cord from the shoulders down.

"I'm going to get you outta here." That was a blatant lie, she knew it too.

"Oh please, we both now I'm not gonna live much longer, at least I can't feel the pain." Her eyes were filled with sadness.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry." I was beginning to cry, of course I had to get her killed too. I had gotten everyone killed due to my own failures, I should have known Hayley wouldn't be able to outrun the covenant. Damn me!

"Do me a favour, don't die, not yet." She was asking me to stay alive, yet here she was, bleeding out on the ground?

"I'm gonna miss you."

"I know." Then she was dead and it was my turn to stare forlornly.

That was the worst feeling in my life, worse than being demeaned by drill instructors, worse than the death of my friends, worse than leading an entire team to their deaths. Knowing that she had died, and I had killed her, mixed my rapidly returning physical pain with an emotional pain I can scarcely describe. It was awful.

I returned to friendly lines safely, the covenant having been forced to retreat from their attack due to lack of supply, reporting a "successful" mission and getting transferred back to reach for some R and R before being redeployed with a new fireteam. My head was a train wreck, unbelievably, they promoted me to a sergeant and slapped a medal on my chest with a "well done".

I had gotten so many people killed, and now they were expecting me to lead more?! I didn't think I could handle it.

* * *

**A/N: I know what you're thinking, "I don't care about Hayleys death! I barely knew her. Why did you try to make it so heart wrenching?" and yeah, you're right, you don't know her. _Yet_. She will remain dead, but her back-story won't. ****Hope you enjoyed it anyway.**

**Other than that, over 2,000 words is an improvement, but still not good enough. ****Any constructive criticism will be highly appreciated.**

**********Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Halo universe, I only own my created characters and the cover photograph.**

**Stay sharp, JD**


End file.
